Bhubaneswar. School and Mass Education Minister Samir Ranjan Dash was missing from the list of district observers for all 30 districts in Odisha released by Biju Janata Dal (BJD) on Thursday.
He was the BJD observer for Jagatsinghpur district last time. The minister had recently landed in a soup with the opposition BJP and Congress baying for his blood over his suspected role in the alleged death by suicide of BJD Zilla Parishad member Dharmendra Sahoo and this could be the reason why the ruling party decided to keep him out with the by-election to Dhamnagar next month and twin polls in 2024.
Though Dash continues as a minister, Pratap Jena, Arun Kumar Sahoo, Bikram Keshari Arukha and Dibya Shankar Mishra had lost their Cabinet berths during the recent reshuffle after being linked to alleged murder cases. However, Dibya Shankar has been appointed as observer for Koraput and Malkangiri and Arun Sahoo for Jagatsinghpur.
Apart from Dash, Debashish Samantaray, Tusharakanti Behera and Chandra Sarathi Behera have also been dropped as district observers.
Almost 10 cabinet ministers feature in the list. Pradip Kumar Amat, Prafulla Mallik, Ashok Panda, Ranendra Pratap Swain, Tukuni Sahu and Usha Devi will be in charge of BJD president and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s home district Ganjam, Kendrapada, Jajpur, Puri, Nuapada and Cuttack respectively. Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak has been appointed as observer for Gajapati and Rayagada.
Pratap Keshari Deb has a big challenge in Balasore, where the BJD wrested the Sadar constituency in the 2020 bypoll.
Pramila Mallick has been appointed observer for Dhenkanal and Khurda districts and will be in charge of a major part of the Bhubaneswar and Dhenkanal Lok Sabha constituency, which may witness a big contest in 2024. Nalinikanta Pradhan has been given home turf Sambalpur and he is likely to contest from Sambalpur Parliamentary constituency again.
Apart from Pritiranjan Gharai, who has been assigned Sundargarh, BJD leaders from western Odisha have been appointed observers for Balangir and Deogarh (Sushanta Singh), Kalahandi (Nabakishore Das), Jharsuguda (Sarada Prasad Nayak) and Sonepur (Rohit Pujari). Soubhagya Nayak will continue to be in charge of Boudh.
The ruling party has decided to go with Pranab Prakash Das for Keonjhar and Mayurbhanj, the only seat in Odisha to be represented by a Union Minister, since the organisational secretary produced a big turnaround for BJD in the panchayat polls in March this year.
Check the complete list here:
